This digital story recording was created in conjunction with the Smithsonian's Museum on Main Street program and its Stories from Main Street student digital storytelling initiative. The project encourages students and their mentors to research and record stories about small-towns and rural neighborhoods, waterways, personal memories, cultural traditions, work histories, as well as thoughts about American democracy. These documentaries, websites, and interviews are then shared on Smithsonian websites and social media.
Students at Mineola Middle School in Texas developed content-rich websites that explored "journey stories" in their community. Participating students interviewed family, friends, and other local residents as part of their official Youth Access Grant local history projects, supported by Museum on Main Street in 2013-14.
Wayne Collins (00:00): I grew up in Mineola, Texas. It was a farming town. There were small farms all around the community. 10 to 20 60-acre farms. It was a big farm. And everybody came to town on Saturday. It was a cotton area. We had a compress here. They sold cotton and it was a farming area. And my dad started off in the cleaning business, tailoring business. And from there, he went to the men's clothing business. And the town turned to be a railroad town about 1929. The terminal move from Longview, Texas to Mineola. And that was a turning point for Mineola. We became a railroad town.
(00:44): Oh, the community didn't move around. Before World War I, people didn't move to other communities. So most of the people I started school with I graduated with. We went all the way through. There was an influx when the railroad moved in some young people. And right at the end of my school year when the Hawkins all boom came in, we had an influx of people that moved in from Hawkins. But most of us went all the way through. Unfortunately, most of the friends that I've gone through... I'm 89 years old now, and so a lot of my schoolmates are not here.
(01:22): Well, it was great growing up. I was on North Pacific Street in Mineola. You know it now as North Pacific, but back then it was a boulevard. We had trees down the center. And it was not paved. It was sandy. And Mr. Mosley was the street foreman or he took care of our street. And he had a caterpillar tractor pulling a grader in the back and he would come down and grade the streets. And he would let us as young people stand on the platform and ride with him on his tractor. And we had no organized type of... for the young people. No organized entertainment. We rode our bicycles, we went out into the country. We just enjoyed life. It was a really free life. And our swings were... Cossack swings are hanged single rope or in a big tire and we'd swing in the tire, but it was a great time to grow up.
(02:20): You're starting in 1937. As a young person ages, that y'all are here or younger, knowing Europe is going to be at war, then when I'm your age Europe's at war, I don't know how it's going to affect me. And I start at the college, and then you spend years that should be... I'd be a year older than you are and I'm at sea commanding people. So I'm doing mature stuff that I wouldn't normally be doing. So it has a great effect on what happens on your later life. You know? I don't know what it would've been like if it hadn't been there. So it did have an effect.
(03:09): I enrolled in [inaudible 00:03:11] at Rice University when I went as a freshman knowing the war was coming. That was in 1941. December of '41. I was riding with a friend of mine on South Main Street in Houston and we heard on the radio we were at war. Japan. So our unit was... The day I went out to sea, was called up to active duty and sent back to college. I entered at Rice in 1943.
Speaker 2 (03:39): Where did-
Wayne Collins (03:40): Active duty. I didn't... I entered '41.
Asset ID: 2022.33.03.a
Find a complete transcript at www.museumonmainstreet.org
